ARE WE LOOKING?

In a couple of weeks, it will be time for the annual St. Paul Winter Carnival.  Having lived in St. Paul for most of my adult life I’m well aware that one of the really big parts of that event is the hunt for the Carnival Medallion.  It’s hidden in the snow in some public place, and then once the carnival begins the newspaper publishes daily cryptic clues, in rhyme, about where people might best go to find it.  And people come out by the hundreds – if not thousands – for days.  They might look inside hollow trees, or under stones, behind walls or along lake shores.  The motive for the hunt is, of course, money for the winner and 15 minutes of local fame. 

In the end, it’s a game, a diversion, and an excuse to get outside in the cold.  People know what they are looking for, and exactly one of them gets to rejoice when he/she finds it.  And then life sort of returns to the way it was before. 

What a contrast is all that to the quest of the magi from the east in today’s gospel of Matthew.  It should be noted, by the way, that magi are not kings; they are scientists – or at least that’s how they regarded themselves.  They are professional star gazers; today we’d call them astrologers, who use what they see in the sky in order to predict the future.  For them, the search is no game or recreation.  It is serious business.  It also must have been tedious business very often for those biblical magi.  Matthew tells us that they were from the east.  That means the desert.  That means pitch darkness at night, and an uncountable number of stars swirling around up there.  Think of it as the Boundary Waters times ten.  It would have taken a very long time and a lot of careful watching in order to discern just exactly how things should be arranged up there, and when something was amiss.  And when there was something out of order, what was believed to be at stake was the very future of the world. 

And that’s why they noticed it – the rising of the star heralding the newborn King of the Jews.  Contrary to a lot of modern art and imagination, nothing in the bible indicates that it was the largest or brightest star up there.  It may have looked much like the others.  But the trained eyes of the magi saw that it hadn’t been there before, but now it was.  And it was moving.  Somehow they recognized it as the star of the Newborn King, and they had to follow it.  They knew what they had been waiting for, and recognized it when it came. 

Meanwhile, back in Jerusalem, King Herod (the Jew) hadn’t noticed any star, nor had anybody else in Israel.  They hadn’t been looking for one.  One is very unlikely to find what one isn’t looking for.

King Herod, the Jew, didn’t even know his own scriptures well enough to know where to look for the birth of The Savior.  He had to consult with the chief priests and scribes in order to learn that it was right there on the pages of Micah:  Bethlehem.  Now, suddenly, Herod got interested in this search, but for the wrong reason.   For the magi, the child born under the star would change the course of history forever.  For Herod, that same child would threaten his power and his dynasty.

Bethlehem is only about 5 miles from Herod’s Palace.  One can walk there in a couple of hours.  (I’ve done it myself.)  So for Herod this was no vague/remote threat.  It was in the neighborhood. 

On this feast of the Epiphany, the magi can pose at least a few very important questions to us still:
What are we looking for in this life to be our source of security and salvation?Why?Why this one and not another?
How hard are we actively searching for it?How carefully do we notice?
How will we recognize it when it appears?
And what are we prepared to do in order to follow after it, after Him?

Again, one is unlikely to find what one isn’t looking for.     

Those folks in St. Paul are willing every year to slog through snow and ice and cold in search of something that isn’t really very important.  We Christians cling to Jesus as the most necessary life force in the world, worth a bit of effort to seek and find through prayer, worship, community, service, justice, and peace-making.  These visitors from the east are rightly called the “wise men.”  May we allow them to be our mentors, so that we may, in turn, do the same for others.